


le chat et le moineau

by thestarsjustblinkforus



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Murder, Self Harm, Stabbing, cravat theft, ill fated handjobs, kissing in the moonlight with blood on their hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 20:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/957425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsjustblinkforus/pseuds/thestarsjustblinkforus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Do you feel complicit because you did not stop it? You could not have, I assure you. If that will weigh on you-”</i>
</p><p>  <i>“I do not feel complicit in the least” he says and he is breathless, his eyes shining with <b>excitement</b> he sees now, not <b>guilt</b>, not <b>regret</b>…</i></p><p>  <i>“Well, you should. I killed for you.”</i> </p><p>  <i>“Your elbows were getting threadbare… I could see the ghosts of your sleeves…”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	le chat et le moineau

  
They are to meet at the street lamp at half past midnight.

He arrives early so that he might set the scene, position himself where he knows the flickering light will favor him best. He leans against the iron, angling his body to it’s advantage, one leg crossed in front of the other with the express purpose of elongating his thigh, taut beneath his new breeches. He runs a hand luxuriously down them just once before tucking it underneath his elbow, the other bringing a cigarette to his lips. It is his last one and he is making a game of it with himself.

If he finishes it before he arrives, he will not do this.

If he does not, he will give him a  _show_.

He tilts his head back on the exhale, a picture of elegant insouciance that he has  _not_ thought at all about beforehand and waits.

It is not long before his  _petit moineau_  arrives, early himself, and his fingers tighten slightly around the cylinder of tobacco which is at best only half finished.

_A performance then._

As per their agreement, the boy does not greet him, indeed he barely acknowledges him at all except for a flickering glance at his presented knee, the pale doeskin an echo of his own bare skin and chosen precisely for that reason.

If it were daylight he is certain he would see a blush.

He can almost picture it now creeping up his delicate neck to the very tips of his ears…

His eyes would not fall away like this if he were free to look now, if the need to be strangers to each other were not imperative here. No, they would stay on his, unwavering and pale as the moonlight that envelopes them in this abandoned little corner of Paris and he thinks of those eyes unafraid and gazing back into his the night they met. He thinks of the exposed skin of his throat, how it had glowed in the darkness like the sheen of his knife pressed against it…

He thinks to go to him now despite losing his game and suggest something else, perhaps take him to one of his cafes he loves so much and then follow him to his rooms after, see that pretty skin without the threat of his knife, because he can not truly want to witness  _this_ no matter what he has said.

 _This_ is not dignified, not refined.  _This_ is a vulgar necessity and he has never let anyone outside his inner circle bear witness to the seedier aspects of his keeping himself in fine linens before, let alone a  _gentleman_  he has only known for a handful of weeks… He does not like this, does not want to do this, but  _Jehan_ , as he has asked to be called, had fixed his strange eyes upon him and made him  _promise_  things…

_“I want to see you…”_

_“That is not me.”_

_A pause. A sip from an absurdly delicate cup, the rich scent of the coffee_ _making his mouth water in anticipation of his own which he has not yet touched, mesmerized as he is by those eyes and the pale porcelain against his lips as he murmurs his macabre request over it…_

_“I want to see what you do”, he amended._

_“You would not be able to bear it.”_

_“I can bear a great many things…”_

_And that had rest between them for a moment, charged and heavy, as Jehan calmly sipped his coffee and his hand twitched against his thigh hidden beneath the table until he continued,_

_“Promise when next we meet it will be in the moonlight and I shall see you finish what you could not with me.”_

_“I could finish with you. Here. Now.”_

_A curve of a smile, the corner of it just visible above his cup, and, softly,_

_“Drink your coffee, Montparnasse, it is not nearly as pleasant cold…”_

As they had parted ways that afternoon he had given him an address and the instruction:  _Do not approach me. Hide yourself and wait._

He has done exactly as asked down to changing his dress so he might melt into the shadows easier, and though he is not pleased with this assignation, he is with his choice of concealment. Jehan has secreted himself behind an abandoned grocers cart where he can observe without being observed and in doing so has left the opposite alley clear for himself to occupy with a suitor, away from the entrance of the tavern and just on the outskirts of the lamplight which he will be sure to keep his face toward once his back is against the wall for his  _friend’s_ pleasure.

He has already decided he will risk a smudge on his coat for this, for the chance to prove Jean Prouvaire wrong.

_You can **not**  bear this, mon petit. Not from this angle…_

He takes a pull, breathes out the smoke like the dragon he is.

_You will run from me. You will run as you should have then…_

_He_  was the one who had run that night. He had met those eyes in the dark and slipped his knife back into it’s place. He had backed away as the fool emptied his pockets sincerely apologizing for having nothing worth taking…

He had run because he could not stick him and he did not understand  _why_. He told himself later that it was because he had made it a rule not to kill unless he could get something out of it. Money. A bauble. Perhaps a fine hat.

The young man’s sense of style was appalling, and his pockets were full of paper, but not the kind he desired.

It was simple, really.

No money. No cravat. No kill.

That was the  _why_  he was looking for.

 _But he has seen your face…_ he had hissed at himself.  _That alone is reason enough…_

And it was.

It is.

He had promised himself if they were to meet again he would do it, he would follow him, he would trap him in some darkened corner and be done with it, but when their paths had crossed less than a week later his prey had come to  _him_. He had seen him from across the boulevard and all but ran to meet him, and then with a shy smile, that pretty blush, he had presented him with a blood red flower, murmured something about his lips that  _rhymed_ , and hurried off after tucking it into his buttonhole.

It had had a home there until it fell apart under his fingers with caressing. He found himself doing so without realizing, his thoughts turning to skin, to how that skin he had barely gotten a proper glimpse of might feel just like those velvet petals…

And so he did not slit his throat.

He met him for coffees.

And dinners.

Readings he could barely keep his eyes open during but tried because he wanted to impress.

He wanted the boy to wonder at the possibility of his skin as well.

His thoughts shift again to ending this now before it begins. To saying  _No_ ,  _I would not have you see me thus. I would have you see me as a gentleman with a pansy on his breast, strolling the boulevard in a fine hat and gloves…_

_I would not have you find me a slinking animal with teeth and claws exposed…_

_I will lose you, Jehan, if you see…_

His guts twist at the thought and he thinks,  ** _Stop_** _._

_Stop this foolishness._

_You do not have him,_ he reminds himself sharply, _and it will be no true loss if he goes. It will mean nothing more than coffees you will have to pay for yourself._

_And no more damned poetry readi-_

There is a burst of light as the doors of the tavern swing open. It spills across the cobblestones, a golden pool lapping at his feet and he stands at the edges of it, knowing all he has to do is step forward and wait for the fish to bite. He can feel Jehan’s eyes on his back and he takes a final drag of his traitorous cigarette before tossing it away with a practiced flick of his wrist.

There is no turning back. His pride never would have let him anyway. But he resents being asked as though this were a game, merely something to do to pass the time, an  _amusement_ …

He can feel bitterness rising up inside him and he thinks, _damn you_ , just once, before uncrossing his legs and straightening. He tugs harshly on the edges of his jacket so it sits correctly before entering the light as the man takes a stumbling step into the street.

He turns his foot out, places a hand jauntily on his jutted hip and surveys him with parted cherry lips.

This is all he ever has to do.

Present and wait.

He always gets a nibble first thing, even when he does not do so at  _this_  particular establishment.

He has learnt that beauty supersedes preference most if not all of the time which allows him to cast a wide net, but tonight… tonight he wants this done quickly and so he is here, in  _this_  place, and he hopes at the very least this man has not spent the entirety of his purse on drink because his clothes are not nearly fine enough to tempt him and he needs to get  _something_  out of this night, needs to convince himself that he is not just doing this at the whim of some strange little bird of a boy who has eyes he can not look away from and a voice that speaks softly when it asks terrible things…

The man belches and it echos into the night.

He should have smoked faster.

The man’s slitted eyes slide up his body, assessing and finding in him the perfect end to his evening, and he nods loosely, his thick hands already going to the buttons of his trousers. He jerks his chin in a  _follow me_ , the space between his shoulder blades prickling under Jehan’s stare as he leads them into the alley left free.

The man scrabbles at his clothes immediately and he catches his hands, places them on either side of his head, keeping the left lower so as not to shadow his face as he sets to his work.

He finds Jehan’s eyes across the way as the man mouths at his neck, disrupting the exquisite knot he had made of his cravat with his teeth and he resists the urge to gut him right then, but no, the little bird wants to see what his  _chat noir_ does when night falls.

He works his hand into the man’s trousers, pumping him ruthlessly as the thing slobbers at him, hands slapping against the stone but doing well at not touching him again. His other hand strokes up his chest and then around and down to his arse, caressing and squeezing and systematically relieving him of anything loose he has upon him.

He is not being careful about it. He wants this done quickly, all thoughts of giving a fine performance slipping away from him with every hot huff of breath at his throat.

He dangles a fob watch behind the man’s back at Jehan who has not moved, who continues to watch intently and he can not read his expression at all.

He begins to feign ecstasies, lets his mouth fall open in a pant, “ _oui, oui, monsieur, oui…”_  mocking the drunks own guttural whining, pulling faces, wanting  _something_ , some glimmer of disgust, or arousal, or jealousy, or even that small secret smile of his that passes for laughter…

But this lusty play does not interest him.

This opera of grunts and moans and sighs…

This is not what he came for.

 _This_ is…

His hand, free after tucking the fob away, the other still moving rapidly over loose flesh, slides beneath his waistcoat. The silk is smooth and fine against his skin and worth every time he has done this, every time he has

slipped the knife in

between the ribs

sleek and smooth and into the heart as the man spills himself for the last time into his palm

his gasp of pleasure contorted as he jerks his knife-hand again

and the man slumps against him, the last sound he will ever make captured in his ear to stay with all the rest.

He shoves him off, his bloodied knife in one hand, the man’s seed in the other, warm and glistening in his palm and he has not once let his eyes stray from Prouvaire’s who still has not moved, who has not looked away  _once_  even for a moment and still does not as he stoops to wipe the filth onto the man’s jacket.

He notices with some satisfaction that the man’s cravat will actually do quite nicely after all. As will his purse which feels promisingly heavy. He cuts the strings before wiping the blade clean on his victim’s shirt, which is not fine and at least two sizes too large, but he remembers the clack of a ring against stone beside his head and retrieves it before standing and making his way back into the street, once more tugging the edges of his coat sharply into place.

He does not stop for Prouvaire. He passes much in the same manner the boy did himself less than half an hour ago. A fraction of a look, enough to say  _come along now or don’t at all,_ and he feels those eyes on his back once more as he makes his way down the deserted street to find a place far enough away from what has come to pass that neither can be blamed nor questioned should someone discover the corpse before daybreak.

He turns into another alley, this one narrower and more dangerous for it. He chooses it for privacy as much as for it being a test to see if he will follow him here where it is clear at a glance he would not escape unless he should choose to let him.

He leans against the wall, feels himself slipping into his earlier pose and thinks to change it but has not time before Prouvaire is there standing at the mouth of the alley, a slight, spindly thing, but  _voluptuous_ for it…

The boy hesitates only long enough to confirm that it is indeed only him and no one else, that he has not been led into a trap. He suspects even if he found he had been he would not run. He remembers well how pliant he had become in his arms under threat but not at all with weakness or fear.

He has not been able to forget it.

Prouvaire comes closer to him, comes deeper into the dark and stops a breath away from touching. They are always a breath away from touching, never have done since that moment they met and he has ached for it ever since. Against his better judgement he aches for it and so he does  _stupid_  things…

He backs him into the opposite wall and he does not look frightened, he never looks frightened, not even when he places his hands against the stones effectively trapping his arms at his sides.

_You have seen what I do… what I meant to do to you before you… distracted me… and nothing? Not a flicker…?_

Not a one.

 _I do not understand you…_ he wants to say, but he can not bring himself to speak first, he  _will not_ , but Jehan’s eyes are shining and damn him it’s always his eyes that pull him from his purpose and he says before can stop himself,

“Do you feel complicit because you did not stop it? You could not have, I assure you. If that will weigh on you-”

“I do not feel complicit in the least” he says and he is breathless, his eyes shining with  _excitement_  he sees now, not  _guilt_ , not  _regret.._.

“Well, you should. I killed for you.”

“Your elbows were getting threadbare… I could see the ghosts of your sleeves…”

His hands come up as much as he will allow and cradle them as if to prove his point by showing him that his coat is thin enough that he can feel the heat of his palms through the velvet and this…

This is the first time Jehan has touched him.

“Now you can have a new coat.”

He swallows.

“And you? What do you get from this?”

“I have never see death before,” he whispers.

“So you thought you would ask me to bring it to you? Is that why you call me your cat? I should bring you presents? Lay carcasses at your feet?”

His hands turn from the wall, his fingernails scraping at the stones with the sudden motion, to grip his thin arms.

Jehan’s still cup his elbows. He still feels their insistent warmth.

“Do you intend to make me one of them? Is that why  _you_  call me your little bird?”

"I…"

He releases his hold after a moment with a muffled cry of frustration, because  _no_ , he does  _not_ , but he  _should_ , and Jehan’s fingers sink further into velvet that has, truly, begun it’s descent into the fireplace and he is ashamed of it’s shabbiness, and he is ashamed of the fact that Jehan is right. He would have needed to do this soon anyhow and blaming the boy for it happening tonight is fruitless and only serves to drive a wedge between them that he does not want-

“I am though…” he says quietly.

“What?”

“Yours.”

“Stop.”  _Do not say these things to me… do not lie…_

“I will not.”

“Then I will  _make_ you sto- _”_

“You have already spared me once before,” he interrupts, infuriatingly calm beside his anger, and he does not reply, he can not, and after a moment, a hesitant, “Why did you?”

“I do not know,” he snaps.

“You are sorry for it?”

“Yes!”

“Then do it.  _Stop_ me. Finish what you began.”

And Jehan finally releases his hold then, his hands traveling in the tight space between them underneath his coat, palming his waist, his ribs, his breast, searching as he had searched for money, for trinkets, for livelihood not an hour ago until they come to the bulge of his knife. He runs a thumb up and down the length of it concealed as it is beneath his waistcoat, placed securely over his heart, and despite himself he leans into the touch wanting to  _feel_  it.

But he can not.

He lets Jehan relieve him of his weapon, something no one else has ever managed, but once it is free from it’s home at his breast, his sparrow, his  _dove_ , holds it to his own throat…

And  _presses_.

He wants to say  _stop_ , he wants to say,  _do not_ …

A jet black bead appears and rolls silently down, making a path he has wanted to make for weeks deep into the recesses of his blouse and it blooms there like a flower in the dark, like a flower presented with a blush and a shy smile, and Jehan’s head is tilted back against the stone wall now, his lips parted, and he senses with his next breath he will press again and…

He takes the knife then, he takes it away.

He pulls the stolen cravat wordlessly from his pocket and presses it against the wound, feels the heat of his blood against his fingertips and Jehan clutches at his elbows again, caging his arms inside  _his_  now and he could break away if he wished, he could run again, but his eyes are on his eyes and his lips are very close and all he has wanted from the very first is to touch them, taste them, take them.

Jehan whispers against his mouth, “What does it sound like…”

And he does not understand, he does not understand this…

He pulls him nearer, holds him closer, enfolds him in his wings and those lips at his ear, brushing the lobe and making him shiver, making him close his eyes.

“What does death sound like…”

And after a long moment, he gives it to him. He gives it to him like he has given him this night, helpless to deny him and no longer caring why,  _why this boy…_

_Because he saw what you are at the first and did not run… and then he did not run again…_

He exhales the way the man had, the way they all had, a trembling, choked off gasp-

“You’ve not made it pretty for me?”

“No…”

“Then again, give it me again,  _mon chat…_ ”

And he does it again and it is horrible. It sits in the back of his throat acrid and burning like smoke gone down the wrong way and Eponine’s raspy laughter in his mouth when they lose themselves in the clutch, in the absurdity of needing a body to find solace in.

He has never truly wanted anyone else before. He has given himself at times. For favors to be collected later. For money to be collected now. For comfort. Friendship.

Never for  _this_.

And he wants it. Desperately.

And he can have it, he can have it…

The boy is hard against him and he shifts his hips to be closer to it as Jehan’s lips find his ear again, as he takes the lobe into his mouth and  _sucks,_ and they move against each other again and again

and again

and again

and again and again and again and again…

The bloodied cravat is lost, crushed between their breasts as he fists Jehan’s hideous waistcoat in his hands, as he lets himself be held so tightly he truly doubts he  _would_  be able to break free now even if he wanted.

Jehan’s are in his hair, disrupting the careful order he has goaded his curls into and he does not care. He is on the verge of soiling his trousers and he does not care.

Jehan gasps words into his ear, poetry he has never had much use for but somehow serves now to urge him on harder, faster, and he cries out, “ _A kiss, a kiss, ma colombe…”_  before he comes and he turns his head to find those lips waiting.

They kiss deeply, fervently until they must tear themselves away for breath, panting into each other’s open mouths as they die entangled in each other’s arms and then collapse against the cold stone wall together.

They are a mess of blood and saliva and come and it is a strange kind of courtship.

He is quite certain that this is what this is, what this has always been.


End file.
